Passports to parks runs into trouble

Views of Silver Sands State Park in Milford, Conn., on Wednesday Apr. 1, 2015. Milford has long resisted any expansion of the park, including things like directional signs on I95 and permanent bathrooms for example. But Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), wants to expand the park to include things like a bathhouse, snack bar, and booths to collect admission fees. less

Views of Silver Sands State Park in Milford, Conn., on Wednesday Apr. 1, 2015. Milford has long resisted any expansion of the park, including things like directional signs on I95 and permanent bathrooms for ... more

Views of Silver Sands State Park in Milford, Conn., on Wednesday Apr. 1, 2015. Milford has long resisted any expansion of the park, including things like directional signs on I95 and permanent bathrooms for example. But Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), wants to expand the park to include things like a bathhouse, snack bar, and booths to collect admission fees. less

Views of Silver Sands State Park in Milford, Conn., on Wednesday Apr. 1, 2015. Milford has long resisted any expansion of the park, including things like directional signs on I95 and permanent bathrooms for ... more

Talk about all dressed up with no place to go, the vaunted Passport to Parks program is having a little trouble getting off the ground. In typical bureaucratic form, the program, aimed at providing “free” access to state parks, would include a new $10 charge on two-year motor vehicle registrations. The estimated $11.8 million per year would, in turn, fill a special budget account for parks maintenance and operations. Alas, there were no funds appropriated for the program in the current budget.

Malloy and his budget chief, Ben Barnes, last week said the General Assembly has to pass some legislation to repair the glitch. “There is no legal basis for the expenditure,” Barnes said to the budget-setting Appropriations Committee, around the time that motorists registering their vehicles got hit with the extra $10 charge. The surcharge had originally been envisioned as $6, but leave it to the General Assembly to round it up.

So the program will run as a so-called deficiency — in the red, to you and me — this year, while the Passport to Parks fund starts raking in those piles of $10 bills. The good news is, when you drive your Connecticut-registered car into the gate of a state park this year, you will get in for free, whether or not you have re-registered.